It is a trite remark that there is a large individual factor, a considerable "personal equation," in matters of taste, as in other matters.

Permanent differences of natural sensibility, of experience, of intellectual habits, and so on, make an object aesthetically impressive and valuable to one man and not to another.

Yet these differences tend to be overlooked.

The individual mind, filled with delight at some spectacle, automatically projects its feeling outwards in the shape of a cause of a common sentiment.

And the force of this impulse cannot be altogether explained as the effect of past experiences and of association.